External defibrillators are emergency medical devices designed to supply a controlled electric shock (i.e., therapy) to a person's (e.g., victim's) heart during cardiac arrest. This electric shock is delivered via pads that are electrically connected with the external defibrillator and in contact with the person's body.
To provide a timelier rescue attempt for a person experiencing cardiac arrest, some external defibrillators have been made portable, by utilizing battery power (or other self-contained power supplies). In addition, many portable external defibrillators have programming to make medical decisions making possible operation by non-medical personnel.
These portable external defibrillators, commonly known as automated external defibrillators (AEDs), including automatic and semi-automatic types, have gained acceptance by those outside the medical profession and have been deployed in myriad locations outside of traditional medical settings. Due to the life saving benefits of AEDs, more and more non-medical users are purchasing and deploying AEDs in their respective environments. This allows for a rescue attempt without the delay associated with bringing the person to a medical facility, or bringing a medical facility to the person (e.g., a life support ambulance).
To assure the availability of an AED for use in a rescue, the functionality of AEDs is constantly assessed. Generally, AEDs having programming that conducts autonomous self-testing, and alerts a user to a problem. These self-tests focus on testing those aspects of the AED which can be tested, such as circuit continuity and circuit functionality.
Autonomous self-tests, however, cannot test every aspect of an AED. More precisely, some functions of an AED are actuated manually by a user. For example, in a semi-automatic AED, the shock switch, which is generally a contact switch, is depressed by a user to deliver a shock. The switch, which can function in many ways such as directly closing the shock circuit or activating a program to close the shock circuit, cannot be tested by the autonomous self-tests. As a result, any damage to the switch would not be detected until a manual interaction occurs, such as during a rescue when a user presses the button.
What is needed in the art is a alternate feature that can be used when a manually activated systems fails. Using the semi-automatic AED example discussed above as an example, a alternate system for the shock switch would be desirable.
Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent for the subsequent detailed description of the invention and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and this background of the invention.